Descon Star-Roc

Scratch - Star-Roc {Scratch}

Contributed by Bill Westfield

Manufacturer: Scratch
STAR-ROC
(Contributed - by Bill Westfield and daughter) 

[Rocket Pic]The idea was to come up with a model my 3 year old daughter could "help" with, even if that didn't mean anything more than sticking on stickers. Stars are about the most rocketry-related thing that comes as stickers, so the concept of the Star-roc was born.

The original version uses a full 18inch piece of BT-60 (about 1.6 inches) body tube, with "your choice" of nosecone.  Fins were lite-ply (? the three layer stuff you get in grab-bags) in an attempt to preserve the points of the stars.  The paint scheme calls for painting the fifth point of the star going up the body tube.  the measurements shown give you a correctly proportioned star looking perpendicular to the plane of the fins (there are four fins), but a possible modification would be to stretch the horizontal dimensions so that the star is proportioned correctly looking directly between two adjacent sets of fins, which is the way the prototype was painted (much easier that way!)  Motor mount is a conventional mount for 18mm motors.  Stability was verified with VCP using subsets of the fin segments (which aren't just about perfect (weight and drag wise, this model is very similar to a big bertha.)  Fly with an 18inch chute, depending on wind and how soft your field is.

After painting black, I gave my daughter a sheet of metallic star stickers and let her put them pretty much wherever she wanted.  Then the fin finishing was done. The prototypes have a different finish on each segment - monocoat, metallic mylar gift-wrapping tape, iron-on metallic finishes similar to what's used in laser printers, and "metallic hued" acrylic paint.  The mylar tape worked best, but my source dried up :-(   The metallic paint is probably next best, but isn't as metallic.
[Rocket Pic]

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